My Response to A. Catholic's Response to Maher's 'Survey'

1) First off, I disagree with the statement ‘Religious truth, i.e., the true religion by its essence is one since God is one and it would be contradictory to say that all religious beliefs are true.’ Just because God is one, does not necessitate ‘the true religion by its essence is one.’ It is not self-contradictory to assert that God can be one but that the true religion by its essence does not have to be one. God can still be one and various religious beliefs can still be true, the one doesn’t necessitate the other like you seem to state. Now you can say being God being one implies that the true religion by its essence is one, but it’s not a deductive argument, which is how it comes across in your statement.

I also don’t think that it’s contradictory to assert that all religious beliefs are true in the way you mean. Some specific ones may be in contradistinction to other specific ones and in this way, you are correct when you say that it’s contradictory to assert that all religious beliefs are true, but other than these specific ones, it’s not a contradiction to say that all other religious beliefs, that are not specifically contradictory to each other, could all be true. I’m not saying that they are, but it’s not contradictory to think that they are or could be, although it may be incorrect, as Alex obviously believes.

Also, again, what criteria does one need to use to judge between the exclusivist claims of the different religions of the world? Alex (and Dave for that matter), why should I believe the exclusivist claims of the Church of Rome or Luther against the exclusivist claims of the Qur’an or any other religious text? I have never met anybody that can satisfactorily answer that question.

2) Your statement ‘This “force” or whatever they call it must of necessity be a personal intelligence because of the great complexity and order in the universe’ is the argument for intelligent design, if what you mean is something different, it doesn’t seem like it. Philosophical note: Dude, you are such a rationalist, I love it!

Also, I love your statement (it may be the best bit of wisdom I’ve ever heard you state) ‘Simply put, the Catholic must have a supernatural love for non-Catholics,’ I think this supernatural love is a great criteria for salvation and can be found in people who are not Catholic. I think having this supernatural love is more important than what specific ideology you profess. That is how I’m a universalist, but it’s not universalism per se because there is a criteria for salvation, supernatural love, and if you don’t meet that criteria, you don’t achieve salvation. So it is more universalistic than Christianity or any exclusivist type religion, but, in reality, it’s just a more all-encompassing form of exclusivism of a more general type. That is how I’m not a Universalist, but more universalistic than the average Joe. So Dave, your right and your wrong, the paradox of existence manifested again, whaddayaknow.

3) Your quote ‘“He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.” (Matthew, 12:30) can be contradicted with another similar verse in Luke (I think) which states something like, ‘If you are not against us, you are with us,’ I know for a fact that this is a bible verse because I remember bringing this point up in my Jesus of history/Christ of faith class and the professors didn’t have an answer for me to explain this obvious contradiction. Would anybody else like to explain it to me?

You also state ‘If God has revealed Himself in a certain way doesn’t it follow that He must be followed accordingly?’ so what would you say if I said that God revealed himself to me in a certain way (I’ve actually told you about this experience before, that it was very ‘Platonic’ to put it simply) and I am following him accordingly, but that way is the way I’ve tried explaining to everybody my entire life and stands, to some degree, at odds with the Catholic Church or Sunni Islam or whatever? Should I believe my own personal revelation from God or what God has revealed to whatever specific church claims he revealed it to him? Would you trust God’s revelation or what the church teaches? Anybody, anybody….

4) You state that ‘All these religions cannot possibly have God as their author’ but I disagree with this statement. All of these religions, for the most part, were founded by people who have had extraordinary religious experiences, it’s not contradictory to believe that while they all had an experience of God, they all interpreted it in different ways and this leads to the variety of religions, but that doesn’t mean that God wouldn’t be the author of these religions. In this type of interpretation, God would be a static kind of Spirit which these founders have an experience of, but then everything which comes after this or these spiritual experiences is their interpretation of this or these spiritual experiences. I guess you can say that the experience(s) can be mis-interpreted, and this is a way a lot of exclusivists go, but maybe the interpretation isn’t the important thing, but the fact that this specific person had this experience and the truth and wisdom they gained from it.

5) You state that ‘It is known to Us and to you that those who labor in invincible ignorance of our most holy religion, and who, carefully observing the natural law and its precepts which God has inscribed in the hearts of all, and who, being ready to obey God, live an honest and upright life, can, through the working of the divine light and grace, attain eternal life, since God, who clearly sees, inspects, and knows the minds, the intentions, the thoughts, and the habits of all, will, by reason of His goodness and kindness, never allow anyone who has not the guilt of willful sin to be punished by eternal suffering (this is most definitely a kind of universalism, a kinda ignorant universalism, but a universalism nonetheless). But it is a perfectly well known Catholic dogma that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church, and that those who are contumacious against the authority of that same Church, and who are perniciously separated from the unity of that Church and from Peter's successor, the Roman Pontiff, to whom the custody of the vineyard has been entrusted by the Savior, cannot obtain eternal salvation. (Here’s the exclusivist catholic position again, they can’t both be right, this seems totally contradictory to me to assert both of these propositions, so which one is it? Also, why stop at this ‘ignorance universalism,’ if this is correct, couldn’t you have a more general type of non-Catholic universalism which extends not just to those ignorant about Catholicism, but those who are not catholic, doesn’t seem like to far a leap to me, but of course, I’m not catholic)

Lastly, I think that I agree with the statement that ‘Ultimately salvation is a gift from God,’ and that no matter what criteria we propose as the True Criteria or what criteria we follow for salvation, the final decision is ultimately up to God, regardless of any criteria, It decides our fate, as it should be, so, as Paul said, no man should boast.